The Last Time
by HelenVanPattersonPatton
Summary: Set in some unhappy future I hope we never see (well, this part I would quiet enjoy seeing...) in which Mindy and Danny have a tumultuous history. Angst heavy. Submission to The M Project Collection on AO3.


*Authors Note: This story contains the depiction of very, _very_ mild physical and verbal confrontation. However, if you are sensitive or think this may pose as a trigger please read with discretion.

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Fingers like a vice on her arm surprise her, jerking her down the hallway and knocking Mindy off balance. God, he's got a lot of nerve doing this here.

Danny shoves her in the hot pipe room and bolts the door behind him, his eyes darker than his normal smolder. He's angry.

"How much have you had to drink tonight?" She goes on the offensive, glaring at him in judgment. It's her only play here because she knows what she's been doing and the way he's looking at her makes her thinks she's gone too far.

"Josh?! You fucking brought _Josh_?!"

Mindy rolls her eyes, trying to blow off the accusation laced in that question. Yes, she brought Josh to their office Christmas party. And yes, it was to piss Danny off, to hurt him after whatever it was they were doing - hooking up or whatever it was - went sour.

The plan has gone remarkably well too, because it is clearly fucking with Danny's head that he thinks she and Josh may be getting back together. Too well though, because every passing minute they've been here has felt more and more like when she and Josh _were_ together, like she isn't good enough for him, every one of his compliments laced with increasingly mean-spirited insults. It makes her feel like an idiot for dating the guy in the first place, and an even bigger idiot for having him here now. He isn't as stealthy as he thinks he is either, Mindy noticing when he slipped the flask from his pocket to spike his soda.

"You're unbelievable! I always gave you credit for being smarter than to take back your abusive, asshole of a cheater, drug addict ex-boyfriend, but I guess I way overestimated you."

"Like you're any better?" She cast her eyes down accusingly where he's gripping her arm.

Danny looks momentarily ashamed, loosening his gasp but not letting her go. "Why are you doing this?"

"Doing _what_, Danny? Trying to have a nice time with an old flame at _my_ office Christmas party? You know, the one that I had to plan by myself because you were being too much of a prick to even speak to me, let alone help do anything."

"Okay, so it's payback. You're trying to punish me for not dropping everything and coming running when you whistle? Well those days are over sweetheart; they ended around the time you closed your legs and forgot how not to be a bitch."

The snap of her hand striking his face sounds dull in the small space. Danny grabs her wrist, holding it tightly away like he thinks she'll slap him again. She might. Mindy swallows the lump in her throat quickly, trying to hang on to the indignation and rage - the nerve of this asshole, she wishes she'd never let him touch her - because if she focuses on anything else the pain of his words like a dagger in her chest will be too much, tears already forming hotly in the backs of her eyes.

"I hate you," is all she manages as a retort through clenched teeth.

"Finally, something we agree on."

He's standing so close to her, and his eyes, the same warm brown that once regarded her with such tenderness, are full of rancor. There's something else there too, something flickering and familiar. Mindy doesn't recognize what it is until his mouth is tearing against hers, teeth pulling sharply on her lips and fingertips pressed hard enough into her skin they'll bruise.

She pushes him away hard, his lips sliding from hers with a wet smack. Danny reels back a half step, his hold on her loosening enough for her to pull away. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and tries to think of the most embarrassing and hurtful thing she can spit at him to cause the most damage. Only -

Danny's standing there with his eyebrows pulled up in the middle, her lip gloss making his mouth shiny, and misery etched in every line of his face. He looks wretched and somehow the most like _Danny_, the man whom she'd come to need as a friend and then want as so much more, for the first time in months. And fuck, it's not fair, but she's missed him.

Mindy grabs the placket of his shirt and before she even pulls he's there again, his mouth branding hers, a hand tugging in her hair and one climbing from where he planted it on her ass, pushing at the fabric of her dress like he's looking for a way in.

She staggers backward, seeking whatever surface will offer them leverage. Her back hits the block wall, hip smacking the edge of her old desk that's still pushed in the corner. Danny frantically unzips her dress just far enough that he can slide the top part off her arms, his fingers tripping clumsily over the clasp of her bra. Mindy pushes his hands away so that she can just do it, and while she does he inches her intentionally very tight skirt up and in one quick movement jerks her panties down to her knees.

Testingly and only for the briefest moment, he rubs the length of his fingers against her before pushing inside. There's a tiny part of Mindy that hates him finding her so wet, like it's handing him some kind of victory, but that petty thought is wiped from her head when he begins to speed up, his fingers curling forward at just the perfect angle that - oh - Her mouth falls open in a gasp.

No. No, this isn't what she wants. She's so close, but she can do this for herself. Hell, she _has_. How many sleepless nights since that final, relationship shattering fight has she had her hand there pretending it was his? No. She wants _him_, the one thing she can't fake. Not really.

Mindy works shaking fingers into the loop of his belt, focusing on the task and not the way Danny's still relentlessly moving in her, his left hand palming her breast roughly. Finally her hand falters and she has to stop, and stop him. She tugs on his wrist until she can get him to take his hand away, his face falling like she means something entirely different than what she does.

Shutters are going back over his eyes and there's a feeling making her heart plummet that he's about to walk away, so she has to say it. She has no choice. "Not like that." She pulls on his shoulder to get him close enough she can kiss him again, close enough she doesn't have to look at him when she says it. "I want _you_, Danny. I've missed you."

He pulls away to look at her and Mindy forces herself to meet his gaze. If she's swallowing her pride enough to ask for him, to tell him what she's relentlessly badgered herself for even thinking, then she should have the guts too to show him she means it.

Danny brushes the hair away from her face, his thumb stroking her cheekbone in a way that is hauntingly familiar. "Yeah," he says in a croaking whisper, and she isn't entirely sure what he's agreeing to.

As he kisses her slowly, his mouth hot and clumsily open, she can feel him unbuckling his pants, the tinking metal-against-metal sound of his belt clasp coming undone. Then he's pushing into her in one fluid thrust and _finally_. Mindy claws at his shoulders and down to his waist, the top of his hips, pulling at him, urging him.

How did she ever live without this? Without him filling every bit of her mind and body? He's rocking against the cradle of her hips frantically, the one side she has supported on the desk knocking it back, further into the corner and banging on the wall in time with his rhythm. She tries to think about the way her hip is going to be sore tomorrow and the next day from the way it's unfairly taking the brunt of this, tries thinking about the paperwork she's been neglecting while planning a Christmas party revenge trap; anything but the way it feels like sparklers are going off in her veins and how her skin is so flushed it feels like it's burning. Anything to prolong the moment of having him where he belongs, maybe for the last time. Her eyes sting with tears at the same time she reaches that tipping point, the pull of her orgasm starting to wind every muscle in her body tight, and she hates her body for betraying her in so many different ways at once.

Danny's thrusts become sloppy and frenzied in a way that would cause her to have trouble finishing with him if she wasn't already starting to clench around him, and he drags his mouth from hers, mumbling _Mindy _as he goes.

The muscles in his arms are quivering as he reflexively tightens them around her. She can feel them tremble against her bare skin, and he is coming. Softly he's groaning in her ear, his warm breath painting her skin, and - oh_ god_. Mindy buries her face in his neck to muffle herself, the cotton of his shirt separating them.

They cling together for a long moment, and only when she goes to pull away does Mindy notice that her tears have soaked down his shirt.


End file.
